The area on which the industrial estate now stands was known as the Broad Meadow; it used to be flooded twice daily by the River Leven, which is tidal here. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, bulwarks that had been built to protect the Townend area of Dumbarton from the River Leven failed. The inundated area soon came to be called the Drowned Lands, and later efforts to reinstate the flood defences met with only temporary success. Most of the Broad Meadow would not be permanently reclaimed until 1859.